Manufacturing News

Over 130 of the Central Coast’s leading business people attended the EnergyAustralia Central Coast Manufacturers’ Association’s 5th Innovation Awards evening at Crowne Plaza Terrigal on Saturday, May 24th.

James Bradfield Moody, Master of Ceremonies, General Manager of International Development at CSIRO and panellist on the TV show The New Inventors, also spoke on the essential nature of innovation, as opposed to invention, in keeping ahead in the global marketplace and congratulated the CCMA for their initiative and leadership in promoting innovation.

With manufacturing employing around ten percent of the region’s workforce the manufacturing sector is an important contributor to the regional economy.

In welcoming the guests, CCMA President John Harris, acknowledged the continuing support of EnergyAustralia as the event’s Diamond Sponsor since its inception in 2003. Six Central Coast manufacturers were honoured for their innovation across a number of categories:

Sharpe Bros.
Sharpe Bros. (Aust) Pty Ltd has invested millions of dollars designing and building the award-winning Sidewinder technology – a uniquely Australian innovation which provides fast and cost-effective road edge repairs and widening.
The usual way of repairing broken edges is to dig up the whole road and then resurface the lot. This causes major traffic disruption and is very costly.
The Sharpe Bros. team thought there must be a better way and developed the patented Sidewinder equipment in the company’s West Gosford workshop.

Sulo
German owned Sulo has been a technological leader in the manufacture of waste and recycling containers for over 100 years. Following a management buyout in 2005, Sulo Australia is now a Central Coast owned company but still aspires to be the industry leader in the provision of products and services that meet the environmental needs of the community
The SULO Organics Collection System, known as the SOCS bin, was designed for the collection of household organics in Australia to assist in achieving waste diversion targets.
With a dedicated organics collection container, significant volumes of material can be diverted from the domestic waste stream. In addition to this, the SOCS container aims to further reduce the amount of organic material that requires transport and processing.

Leda-Vannaclip
Leda-Vannaclip is based at Tuggerah Business Park and manufactures perimeter security products that are used to protect high profile sites, shopping centres and ATM machines. They are industry leaders in their field.
Committed to an ongoing R & D program, Leda-Vannaclip’s engineers and design team are constantly working on improving their present product range and developing new products.
One new product is their new Bi-Fold Gate. This high speed gate is used to control vehicle access in and out of buildings and has to work continually for extended periods such as in busy car parks

E-Bisprint
E-Bisprint Pty Limited has created a unique online application which can be used to automatically generate press-ready artwork for printing.
It is the only product of its kind operating to the same quality standards anywhere in the world.
After logging in users nominate their requirements and the application adjusts the artwork to suit with the current system, allowing for more than 47,000 size combinations up to full A4 page.
The Press Ads application is the latest in E-Bisprint’s award winning Streamline Online™ range which means that it is integrated within the same easy-to-use interface.
E-Bisprint has used five different programming standards to create the high quality results which are achievable within the application.

Pacific Labels
Pacific Labels Pty Ltd manufactures pressure-sensitive labels at their North Wyong facility. Through their recent acquisition of the XP5000 print press Pacific Labels are now the only company with this capability, placing them at the forefront of labelling solutions and label innovation throughout Australia.
Through this investment Pacific Labels has advanced their continuous improvement program giving them the tools to produce a wider variety of innovative labels and labelling solutions to meet the continuing marketing and packaging requirements of their clients.

ADC Krone
ADC KRONE is the leading international manufacturer of telecommunications equipment. Their Berkeley Vale production facility is the centre of excellence for the Asia-Pacific region, providing a best practice model.
The company’s Research & Development Department has developed technology for Computer Aided Manufacture of Mould Tooling enabling them to produce prototypes quickly, usually within 3 days, for evaluation.

Sponsors for the 2008 EnergyAustralia CCMA Innovation Awards were:

• EnergyAustralia
• Forsythes Recruitment
• Hunter Institute of TAFE
• ADC Krone
• Australian Technical College - Central Coast
• Nab
• Steinbok
• Central Coast Business Review
• Central Coast Sun Weekly
• Infiniti Events
• Crowne Plaza Terrigal

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